Letter from New York.

Un Meant Utterly Nerve-racking

September 09, 2000|By The Millennium Summit managed to bring the City That Never Sleeps to a standstill, the Tribune's Patrick Cole writes. Tribune staff writer Patrick Cole covers the United Nations.

NEW YORK — The UN Millennium Summit here this week brought world leaders, world-class discourse and, arguably, the world's worst traffic jams for four consecutive days in a major American city.

In a city where congestion is a constant, that is saying quite a lot.

But, when it takes five minutes to travel a block in a taxi, it makes one wonder whether the UN should have thought of another base from which to make the world a better place.

What about Geneva? That placid Swiss city deftly handles such other UN organs as the World Health Organization, with ample hotels and far fewer people. Then again, the UN's General Assembly chamber, with its 1,898 seats, was tailor-made for the largest gathering of world leaders in recent memory.

Apparently, the UN's architects didn't think about the 200-plus limousines and countless police and diplomatic vehicles that would add to the city's usual daily complement of 8 million citizens and seemingly as many cars and trucks on occasions like this.

The result: Manhattan was a world-class mess.

Let's begin with traffic. With First Avenue--where the UN sits beside the East River--and eight blocks of nearby side streets closed off, the adjacent streets became virtual parking lots populated by acid-tempered drivers. Cars crept at the speed of snails. Taxis beeped and honked as if they were cursing in their own tone-based language. Drivers pounded steering wheels and waved their fists.

Suddenly, the Manhattan Rickshaw Co. began developing new devotees. The comfortable little carts, propelled by strapping men and women, could go where few other vehicles dared--even on sidewalks.

Then there was the New York Police Department. Overnight, it seemed, they turned the East Side of Manhattan into a virtual police state, decorating the normally posh and peaceful neighborhood around the UN with an impressive array of crime-fighting paraphernalia: Cops on every corner. Squad cars on every street. Sniffer dogs on patrol. Jack-booted officers on motorcycles. Bomb squads in vans. Sharpshooters on roofs.

And, of course, there were the demonstrators--hundreds, maybe thousands, of them--all over the city.

Just about anyone who had a bone to pick with a world leader eventually came to the intersection of 47th Street and First Avenue at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, the week's designated global complaint bureau.

The National Council of Resistance of Iran protested the UN appearance of Iranian President Mohammad Khatami. Members of the Falun Gong spiritual group came from as far away as Singapore and Scotland to meditate and chide Chinese President Jiang Zemin for his nation's harsh treatment of the group. The Indian Christian Association gathered to spread the Gospel. There were plenty of others.

Natasha Simonovski said the chanting and speeches reverberated all week in her seventh-floor office on 47th Street.

"I hear protests all the time, but those fang gong guys--or whatever they're called--I've never heard of them until this week," said a perturbed Simonovski, a webmaster for an engineering association.

At the UN, only those sporting passes, such as diplomats and journalists, were allowed within a block of the glass tower of the UN Secretariat and the squat General Assembly chamber adjacent.

But the shiny photo identity passes were hardly enough. Some UN employees were frisked by gun-toting security officers as they entered UN offices across the street or a block away from headquarters.

Major thoroughfares such as 42nd Street and Second Avenue were turned into VIP expressways for heads of state. Secret Service officers in black Chevy Suburbans or caravans of New York police vehicles with screaming sirens escorted dignitaries through the middle of the street between rows of orange cones.

Hence, for four days, the East Side of Manhattan became a two-tiered society: heads of state and UN diplomats--and the rest of us.

"In one word--it's been hell," said Zell Wylie, who lives a block from the UN. Sitting near a fountain on Second Avenue, she watched over Mister, her tiny Yorkshire terrier, who sat in a grocery cart and trembled every time a car horn honked.

Tony Montemagni, the owner of Da Mario's restaurant, couldn't wait for the summit to end. Located two blocks from the UN on First Avenue, he usually gets at least 30 customers for lunch. On Friday six showed up. "Every time dignitaries come to the UN, it kills my business because people are avoiding this area," said Montemagni. "It's the barricades. You know, maybe the federal government should give federal subsidies to businesses like mine."

Perhaps. But, given a world body notorious for ignoring parking tickets, such a subsidy is highly unlikely.